Archive for the Kucinich Category

I hope everyone had a great holiday! I know I did. On Christmas Eve, I went to my grandparents’ house. I really only see them during the holidays, even though they don’t live too far away. That’s just how we roll in the Nova posse. My brother and his girlfriend were there, as were my parents and my Uncle Mike. It was nice getting everyone together, but I try not to be overly sentimental about family, so I’ll stop there. 😛

On Christmas day, the otter and I had our traditional dinner at the Waffle House, a tradition that started last year when I had the flu and didn’t want to spread it to her family. We exchanged gifts and had great breakfasty-type-food, served to us by a waitress who looked EXACTLY like Punky Brewster.

I know that discussing Christmas presents goes against better judgment, especially after my apartment was broken into this summer, but I’m going to do it. Damn the fates, I say. I’ll only discuss a few gifts here, so if you got me something, and I didn’t mention it, either there was a good reason for it that you already understand, or it is something that I wouldn’t want the interwebs community to read about. Ooooooohhhhhh….secrets!

Anyway, I got lots of giftcards, which will be quickly used on stuff I need. Like more CDs. My brother and his girlfriend got me a gift card towards songs on the Rock Band video game, so that when I visit them, we can rock out with our…never mind.

The otter got me a lot of stuff, but the stuff of interest to the interwebs are the Heroes season one box set, and the book The Courage to Survive by Dennis Kucinich. I also got a new coat, which is keeping my incredibly warm in this..how cold is it…60 DEGREE WEATHER!?! What the hell happened to December? It feels like Spring out there! I also got some new clothes, which I needed desperately!

The otter’s sister got me an awesome DVD of a half-hour long Rube Goldberg device, called The Way Things Go. Jayson, this is the same one we saw at the Akron Museum of Art.

There were other cool gifts, too, as well as money. I’ve spent some of the money on the book The Delivery Man by Joe McGinniss Jr., as recommended by the otter’s friend, Zach.

Besides visiting relatives and getting gifts, I watched Elf on Christmas day, and have spent a lot of time playing Gladius and Jade Empire on the XBox. Good times.

This saturday, the otter and I went to Elyria to visit my brother on his birthday. On our way, we stopped in Tremont, just outside of downtown Cleveland.

This was obviously an economically depressed area. After driving through the projects, we made it to a little neighborhood with little houses packed close together. Across the street was a park where a man was selling The Homeless Grapevine for a dollar (I didn’t buy one…there was a crowd of people engage him in political discussion). All over the park and neighborhood were Obama/Biden signs and various other Democratic signs, including many bright yellow ones with “Dennis!” written in big, friendly, black letters.

We walked to our objective, Visible Voice Books. If you’re ever in the area, you should definitely stop there. They have lots of new books at list price, as well as cheap used books. It seems they also have poetry readings, chess games, and themes presentations (they are celebrating Charles Bukowski right now). Not only that, but there’s a wine bar at the front counter. We spent about 45 minutes there, and I bought Adrian Tomine’s 32 Stories, John Darnielle’s Master Of Reality(To replace the one that was stolen from me), and two gifts for my brother (Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s The Push Man and Other Stories and Shotaro Ishinomori’s Japan, Inc.).

After the book store, we went to a cafe, the name of which escapes me right now. The coffee was a little dark but smooth.

Ok…I’m skeptical of on-line petitions. As a rule, they are pretty worthless. However, Dennis Kucinich has started an official-type petition fot the impeachment of George W. Bush. I don’t think that the petition is good for anything besides showing congress that the people want to see this happen. That said, the will of the people may be what it takes to persuade congress to pursue the charges. So, SIGN IT!!!

Ok, as many of you know, I am hugely in favor of H.R.676, the Conyers/Kucinich health care plan, which would insure every American under a universal payer system. The way I see it, when medicine is being run for profit, it’s not being run for patients.

I am also against Clinton’s plan, which essentially forces everyone to participate in a for-profit system that is already broken. Her plan would fix some of the problems of the system, but I think that forcing us into a system that already doesn’t work makes the problem worse. This is especially true for someone like me who makes enough money to not get the government assistance her plan would give, but who is in so much debt that I am practically in poverty.

I really didn’t have an opinion on the Obama plan. He would insure children who need insurance, so that all children would be insured. I have no children, so this doesn’t affect me. Or so I thought.

I got to thinking, though…what happens when these universally insured children turn 18? Well, to start, they lose their insurance. More importantly, though, they gain the ability to vote. I’m not sure it’s Obama’s intention, but by showing people that universal health care can work, then taking it away from new voters, he is actually promoting the ideals of H.R. 676. the Obama play is not a band-aid on a gushing wound, as I thought it was, but a baby step towards universal health care for all.

As Dennis Kucinich’s presidential bid comes to a close, I’d like to take one last look at some of the high points (and there were many, believe it or not) of his run, as well as some other moments in his career.